REVOLUTION

Why them? Why then?

◼ BY 1979 THE ANGER OF THE BRITISH PUNK movement’s failed misfits was a pile of cold cinders. A monumental recession threatened school-leavers and even graduates with the prospect of no jobs, seemingly for life… Yet from this black hole burst a British band whose pounding synthesised electro-pop was to define a glitzy new youth culture and change for ever the rhythm of UK pop charts from the RnB guitar to the bass and drum.

When my phone rang in January 1980, little did I realise its message meant: “Put out the cat. You’re coming to the party of your life.” Obi-Wan Kenobi spoke without pausing: “My name’s Steve Strange and I run a club called the Blitz on Tuesdays and I’m starting a cabaret night on Thursdays with a really great new band they combine synthesised dance music for the future with vocals akin to Sinatra they’re called Spandau Ballet and they’re going to be really big…”

How could I know, as I stepped through the keyhole into a netherworld of impossible trendiness, that this was…

MY INVITATION TO THE SWINGING EIGHTIES

Easter 1980 at Steve Strange’s Blitz club-night: Julia Fodor leads Jennifer Binnie and sister Christine (“Miss Binnie” the artist), both clad in sackcloth, in their first performance piece at the club. Fashionista Iain R Webb sacrifices himself on the cross. Photographed by Homer Sykes

Daily life would never sound or feel the same again. One band defined a new direction for pop and shifted its driving rhythm, from the rock guitar to the bass and drum. They also made it hip to play pop. They were Spandau Ballet who burst as dandies from a sexually ambivalent London club-night called the Blitz. After only eight live shows they were in the UK pop charts. Within three years they went from leaders of a cult to being one of four British supergroups (with Duran Duran, Culture Club and Wham!) who swore death to rock and roll, and led a total of 108 stylish young clubland acts into the UK charts – more than ever sprang from the Liverpool of the Sixties – among them ABC, Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, Bananarama, Human League, Sade, Haircut 100.

July 1980: For the house band of the Blitz club, Spandau Ballet, image was as important as the music. Here we see Martin Kemp and Tony Hadley during a rare performance aboard HMS Belfast to an invitation audience of New Romantics. Photographed by Virginia Turbett

The Blitz: Crucible for change

A NATION’S JOURNEY

This site, Shapers of the 80s, revisits the early Eighties through the journalism and photography of one observer who knew a good time when he saw one and wrote about it in the London Evening Standard and, as the subcultural slipstream created new publications, also in The Face and New Sounds New Styles, among others. The preposterous people you will find within these pages are the key players whose energies transformed British youth culture during an extraordinary journey by the whole nation from one of makers to another of servants as Britain found a new role for itself in the affluent Eighties.

“ Rules were broken: men wore makeup, feminine clothes, it was costume. . . Women experimented in getting rid of those codes that existed in discos which were men looking like men and being on the pull and being predatory and girls waiting to be pulled. That went right out the window ” – Caryn Franklin, writer, broadcaster

THE TEAM WHO TRIGGERED
A NIGHTLIFE REVOLUTION

◼THE ONE-OFF CLUB NIGHT was pioneered in 1978 by Rich Kids drummer Rusty Egan. He printed a flyer declaring “fame fame fame” to lure Bowie outcasts to the un-punk safety of a tacky gay dive called Billy’s, in Soho. In common with London’s posher clubs, Tuesdays there were a dead zone. “I’ll fill it for you,” said Egan, establishing the principle of bar profits to the club owner, door profits to the hosts. This initially meant David Claridge vetting the door, but he soon gave way to Egan’s flatmate, pop wannabe Steve Strange, another Welsh graduate of the UK soul circuit who worked at the flouncy clothes shop PX which came to fix the New Romantic look. By February 1979, the axis of Strange as greeter and Egan as deejay had set a template for the next chapter in London nightlife: the once-a-week party that enjoyed full disco facilities. The duo marched into Covent Garden and nailed their ambitions to the Blitz club.

Regular faces at Billy’s 1978: all it took was a crucial accessory, a pert cap, a tossed hair salad. Presto! Instant glamour

Defining the Swinging Eighties

◼ “IF WE RECAST THE 80S as a subcultural timeline, the decade actually spanned six years. They began in June 1978 when David Bowie’s world tour hit the UK – rallying dispossessed punks and kindred music-loving nomads who came to recognise they were not alone.

“These Eighties ended in Dec 1984 with what remained for 13 years the biggest-selling single in UK chart history, Do They Know It’s Christmas? This was an unprecedented act of charity through collaboration by 47 members of rival bands calling themselves Band Aid, who had risen on the same post-punk wave. They raised millions for the Ethiopian famine.

“Crucially, it confirmed a new British pop establishment of musical innovators. And coincidentally, it laid the foundations for Live Aid, the globally mounted fund-raising concert held in July 1985 and watched by 400 million viewers, across 60 countries.”

✱ Get up close and personal with Prince’s life and work at the limited 21-day retrospective My Name Is Prince at the O2 Arena in London for 21 days from 27 October. Tickets are £25 and go on sale Friday 25 Aug at 9am

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NEWS — OLD FACES, NEW MIXES FOR THE 20-TEENS

✱ Catch up with Spandau Ballet’s relaunch at Facebook Live – In September Gary, Steve, Martin and John hosted a screening of the new Through The Barricades documentary then gave a 40-minute interview about their plans . . .Also – Over at SonyLegacyUK they’re collecting stories from Spandau Ballet fans about how the band’s music has soundtracked your life. Email your stories to legacylovestories@gmail.com and the best will be used in their next Love Stories feature. More info here

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✱ Former Animal Nightlife singer and face about town Andy Polaris relived his London life with Gary Crowley on BBC Radio London in August, then on the iPlayer

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✱ FINALLY! What ought to prove the definitive appreciation of the style bible that shaped the 1980s. . . Cultural guru Paul Gorman tells The Story of The Face from the magazine’s launch with £3,500 of Nick Logan’s savings in 1980 to its sale to Emap in 1999, in between “paving the way for the digital delivery of visual culture in the 21st century”. – From Thames & Hudson this November

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✱ Pop Stars in My Pantry is showbiz hack Paul Simper’s memoir of the early days of one of pop’s most successful eras: the 1980s. It’s an account of how a wide-eyed lad landed in London just as the capital’s club scene went into orbit. Available from Amazon, from August 2017… Read an extract here at Shapersofthe80s – Sade’s first foray to New York City

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✱ Ex-Spandau singer Tony Hadley and his band headline the Lost 80s Live tour through Sept 2017… Returning to Blackburn 29 Sept, Chile 4 Nov, later to top the bill at Wembley’s SSE Arena for the Let’s Rock Christmas Retro Show also starring Kim Wilde, Nik Kershaw, Go West, Nick Heyward, T’Pau and others tbc

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✱ Join in the Q&A during An Audience with Martin Kemp who is touring the UK all year: remaining dates include Milton Keynes, Richmond (Yorks), London and Crawley

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✱ Steve Norman Live & Personal will be an intimate encounter including an acoustic performance and a Q&A: two dates at London’s newest Pizza Express Live venue are already sold out. But a third is still booking for Birmingham on 25 November. . . Later Steve shares the stage when Bowie pianist Mike Garson and his band perform Aladdin Sane in its entirety plus a set of Bowie favourites on 28 & 29 November in London and Sheffield

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✱ The original Blitz Club deejay’s first solo album capturing the spirit of 80s electronica, Rusty Egan Presents Welcome to the Dancefloor, was published last year – read a full review of its 14 tracks here at Shapers of the 80s. . . Hear WTTDF via the Mixcloud player. . . Egan also booked for all three Rewinds in July and August. . . Come and listen to Egan telling “the truth” about his colourful past on 6 Dec in An Audience With Rusty at London’s new Pizza Express Live venue

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✱ Matt Bianco’s Mark Reilly and the 8-piece New Cool Collective celebrate their collaboration album The Things You Love with a European tour through the summer – Facebook has Mark’s dates). Bianco’s 1984 album Whose Side Are You On? introduced jazz to a chart scene still dominated by British new wave, ska and punk. Hit singles followed

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✱ Issue 71 of Soul Survivors magazine features George Benson, Larry Mizell, Bez Parkes, Jan Kincaid, Simon Law and all soul music events. Under Fitzroy Facey, the mag celebrated its tenth anniversary with a new compilation on Expansion Records (above).

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